Voter Guide
On Tuesday, June 17, Charlottesville will use ranked choice voting in its primary election for City Council. This page addresses common questions about the election. If you have a question not answered here, send us a note at hello@rankedchoiceva.org.
When is the election?
The primary election is on Tuesday, June 17, 2025. Early voting starts Friday, May 2 and ends on Saturday, June 14. Learn more about when and where to vote.
Who are the candidates?
There are two open seats on City Council and three candidates running: Juandiego Wade, Brian Pinkston, and Jen Fleisher. All three candidates are Democrats. No Republicans filed to run in this election. The ballot also includes Democratic candidates for Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General.
What is ranked choice voting?
In a ranked choice election, you don't just vote for one candidate. You get to rank the candidates in the order that you like them.
The City Council section of the ballot is pictured here. Each candidate is listed on a separate row. Mark column 1 for your favorite candidate, column 2 for the candidate you like next, and column 3 for the candidate you like least.
- You can only use each ranking once. If there are two candidates you like, mark your favorite candidate 1st and the other one 2nd.
- You don't have to rank all the candidates, but ranking a 2nd choice will not hurt your favorite candidate.
For more information about marking the ballot, please see our Ballot Guide. It covers the most common questions we hear from City residents as they prepare to vote.
How are ranked choice ballots counted?
Votes Needed To Win
# of winners
share of votes
There are two open seats on City Council this year. In a ranked choice election with two winners, candidates need to earn at least 1/3 of the votes to win a seat.
Why a third? Because only two candidates can each win more than a 1/3 of the votes.
The ballots are counted in rounds until two candidates each get enough votes to win.
- Your 1st choice counts in Round 1. If two candidates each get more than 1/3 of the votes, they both win, and the race is over.
- If only one candidate gets enough votes to win in Round 1, the winner's extra votes (above 1/3) go to the voters' 2nd-choice candidates in Round 2. The candidate that wins more than 1/3 of the votes in Round 2 wins the second seat.
Transferring votes in Round 2 ensures that no one's vote is wasted. If your favorite candidate gets more votes than they need to win, your 2nd choice can help choose the 2nd winner in Round 2.
Read a detailed example of ranked choice election results.
Why is Charlottesville using ranked choice?
Ranked choice voting lets voters express their honest views about all the candidates. You can't waste your vote by ranking your favorite candidate first, and you can support a second candidate without fear of hurting your favorite.
Under Charlottesville's former election system, voters could support two candidates but not express a preference between them, leading many voters to "single shot" or "bullet vote" to avoid hurting their favorite candidate by using their second vote.
The Charlottesville Democratic Party requested a ranked choice primary and City Council granted the request with guidance from the City Registrar and Electoral Board, in keeping with state law. In a memo to Council last August, the City Registrar wrote that "ranked choice voting has been successfully adopted in various localities and states across the nation and has been shown by research to support more diverse candidate pools and improved civility in campaigns and elections".
Where else is ranked choice voting used?
Arlington has used ranked choice voting to elect its County Board since 2023. Outside Virginia, ranked choice voting is used statewide in Maine and Alaska and at the local level in roughly 50 U.S. cities and counties.
